Episode 188 with Connor McWilliams and Max Ceron

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Head to MillerWeldscom to discover the right training solution for you . Hello and welcome to another edition of the CWB Association Podcast . My name is Max Saron and , as always , I'm going coast to coast to coast to find the stories out there in Canada and around the world for you , my faithful listeners .

Today we have Connor McWilliams coming to us from Vancouver , which I would say sometimes is sunny , but most of the time is not . Connor , how are you doing today ?

You're looking at about two and a half million a piece , but uh , if you're okay with that , then it's a nice place to live in for sure steve sims beautiful , the harbor is nice .

Uh , I guess what created that ambition for you as a kid to to perhaps pursue a trade or get out of that , that environment ?

So , um , you know , was training with some whl teams uh used to train with , actually , a captain of team canada there , with uh brent Seabrook , for a little while right and when I was 16 , my grandfather unfortunately passed but he left me behind a chunk of money , so $8,000 .

And I had the opportunity to spend that money to join a hockey team for a year or to buy a Mustang , or to buy a Mustang and , as you can imagine , with any 16-year-old , just went to the Mustang route and you know that's what led me down .

You know , going into trades , I just started working on the car and , you know , got a new exhaust for it and I was like man , this is really cool stuff and you know that's what inspired me to get going working with my hands .

But you know , I ultimately didn't want to do it , like I'm sure it's a lot of kids dreams , but it just wasn't mine . So I really liked once I got my Mustang in the car and just fooling around with it . And you know I was fortunate enough that in some high schools they offer apprenticeship programs where you can finish , you know , a bit early .

So I went in the automotive route and got my automotive level one service technician ticket and then I started working over at Chevrolet there and it was a great gig and I managed to land an apprenticeship through them , which was nice because they would pay for all the schooling .

But I remember just being at work and , you know , trying out welding just on some of the cars and I was like man , this is awesome , Like I love doing this , and you know , if I could get any sort of role that involved , like you know , just even operating a torch , like I was like , hey , you know , and just an acetylene torch , like if I can just use

that to bend some metal on a car , like pass it over . And that's where I started . Looked into some programs and , yeah , signed up for school and then went through school at about 18 for my level one for welding .

I own a ford and a chevy and my ford is a mustang , so I I've had , uh , three mustangs . Now this is my third one , but um there you go , you . You do the mechanic , you do the auto body technician . Did you , did you not feel like that was your home , or did you just think that the welding portion of it was the coolest part of the day ?

And you know , I was like man , this is some bad stuff Throwing a roll cage , like you know . Know , I was like man , this is some bad stuff throwing a roll cage , like you know , it just felt so cool . So I was like , why would I not hone in on this ? And you know , you look at that too . And you look at what does a welder make ?

You know an oil and gas field versus what does , uh , you know my future , look like at chevrolet making whatever 70 , 80 000 a year . And you know , that was just another factor . And I was like , hey , you , hey , you know what , I'm going to go this route and that's really what led me there .

the gate . I know some people struggle with getting welding gigs . Some people struggle with getting welding gigs . I was , fortunate enough . I just walked into some guy's shop . He was looking for welders . He said , hey , connor , we've got a project going on .

We're building a SpedEx warehouse I think it's a main distribution factory over in Western Canada because it was huge . But they were severely behind their schedule . So when I went to him I was like , yeah , are you guys hiring ? And he said , yeah , when can you start ? And I said , well , whatever , I just finished school .

And he said , all right , you're starting tomorrow . So I went right into a gig two days after getting my ticket , welding seven days a week , 12 hour days , and yeah , it was good , fun and definitely a pay increase from working at Chevrolet , as you could imagine .

I find that there's quite a bit of work , um , albeit that there is some requirements of certifications now , like it's gotten a little trickier in today's welding world because there are tickets and qualifications that people expect .

For you walking into a new warehouse construction build , I'd imagine it's probably like you needed your base CWB , all position , mig and stick , maybe a flux core I don't know structural stuff right .

Just with the amount of rain that we get in vancouver I'd be , you know , throwing some i-beams up and I'd just be getting electrocuted . So I I wanted to avoid that , so I got out of there a couple months in .

But uh , yeah , it was a good experience and I definitely recommend , you know , getting your cwbs for whatever position you can get them in if you know you're new to welding , and it'll help you significantly with landing a career right , so it makes it easier to start .

You might not be welding all day , you may not weld at all for a few days , but it's work and it's really good paying work with really good pensions and benefits . And you know , don't look a gift horse in the mouth . Work is work , right .

There's a whole like process of getting back in there and they're like do welders ever get shocked on site ? And I was like dude all the time but no one seems to care about us getting shocked . You know , electricians oh no , take the day off . We're like just with their hair standing up all day .

But whatever , you know I guess uh , I guess that's part of the job yeah so let's keep going down the timeline . You tried out iron working for a bit . Uh , you know they say vancouver only gets around 70 to 75 sunny days a year .

The pay wasn't that great as you could imagine going from , you know , working the field with iron working where you have lots of overtime to a shop role where it's , you know , basically 40 hours a week , maybe an extra day of ot sort of thing . Um , so that that was a bit tough .

But uh , at the same time I got a call from the temp agency asking you know if I want to try another gig . And I enjoyed where I was at . So I told him no . But I told him , hey , I had a friend , he just got a c-level . Can , uh , can he join on ? So he joined them and then I called him .

I said how's it going over at this new place that I got you a job ? And he's like oh , it's going great . And I asked him how much he was making . He's making more than me and I was like man , I got this guy a job making more money than me what am I doing ? so I uh , yeah , elected to go . Uh , I said , hey , well , are they hiring ?

And you know I went over and applied and , you know , got the job and that was over at a place it's called commercial truck and uh , that's over in delta . So you know , again , about 30 minutes from richmond or vancouver and we're building commercial . It was super cool job .

You know , I was able to use my automotive experience and you know , we we were able to build all these trucks . I was getting a little bit of electrical work , some hydraulics , some welding and , um , yeah , it was . It was a pretty good time . I love that place . It was a good time .

And you know , I was put into a funny position because I was put in charge of this big contract , you know as a lead hand I guess . So I was managing , you know , 10 other guys and I had to be there right for the company to make sure that that contract went through . And , you know , at the same time I wanted to get my journeyman .

I was like , well , how am I going to go back to school ?

So it was one of those things where I just told him , hey , I'm going to go back for my b-level and , you know , if you can keep me on , great , if you can't , then I guess that's it , which is , uh , you know , I guess you could say a ballsy move when you're living almost , uh , paycheck to paycheck at that point in time , right , so I , I went ahead with

it and you know sure they needed me there . So I was able to go and take my B-level while working there , which was basically Monday to Friday , I'd be working 6 am to 3.30 pm , and then from 4 pm to usually about 9.30 pm I'd be in class doing my B-level .

And that was my routine , for I can't even remember how long B-Level was three months , four months , something like that right . Yeah , no , it was a good time .

So I got a little bit of TIG experience not a whole lot , so it took me a little bit longer than the average person to go through that schooling , but uh , you know , when I came back I was like man , I love that you're not catching on fire , you're not really getting electrocuted too , often this is the role that I want .

So , uh , when I worked at this other shop , it's called aggressive tube bending . They do a lot of work with boiler makers . They do some uh stuff with , uh , you know the aircraft industry and you know some military contracts , you know some art installation . So I was building really cool stuff . I love what I was doing .

But , uh , you know , unfortunately after a little while I suffered from some nerve damage in my lower back . I had a ruptured disc in my l5 and L6 , so that took me off work for about a year .

But it's just one of those things where you're in a fab shop and you're picking pipes up from the ground , you throw them on a stand and welding them up and you know you're you're trying to save time so you're not using the overhead crane and stuff like that , and and that's basically what got me there .

But you know , max , as far as that goes , I don't think that it was a bad thing . I think I was very blessed to have that , because it gave me the opportunity to reach out to friends that were welding inspectors and say , hey , how did you get into this ? What was the deal , right ? So that led me into the next part of the career , which was nice .

And I was like you know , my man , like I appreciate what you did , but I hope I never see you again in my entire life yeah , I've had him .

But I mean you learn , you learn to take care of it , you learn what to do . But yeah yeah , I mean , uh , use the equipment kids , yeah , yeah , absolutely cortisol feels like fire going in . It's not fun .

Now are these inspector people that you met through the trade or people that you went to school with , that kind of went down that route ?

So reached out to him and he said hey , you know , just go and go and get your level one . I went and got my level one inspector's ticket . Then when I went and joined them , they were just starting with the Trans Mountain Pipeline there Went and hopped on that gig .

There's a ton of , as you can imagine , a ton of certification needed and all that sort of stuff . I was one of the only inspectors basically working there and uh , well , on this portion it was spread 7b , which is in uh hope and chilliwack area , and uh , it was .

It was a good gig , you know , working basically 712s , but it was now at this point a lot more slacked . It was just uh that's just taking on documentation . Yeah , Taking on more responsibility obviously but , uh , yeah , it was a nice gig . And then , at the same time , you know , as getting my level one , I really had an interest in going into finance .

So , you know , I I actually went ahead and started , uh , getting educated a bit before that in finance , but got my tickets that allowed me to provide financial products during that time period .

you have . For the most part , we get offered people to do our finances for us . You know , like most of our jobs have financial attachments to it to to help us , because we're notoriously bad at the money we make .

Yeah , um , so like I always tell people that you know I've told welding students since we were , since I started teaching 10 , 15 years ago it's like we're like we're like professional sports athletes , welders . You know we get paid a lot . Our work life might not be forever because you know you don't see too many 60 year old welders out there .

It's kind of like a gig where you make a lot of cash and you try not to blow it . You try not to you . Try not to let it slip through your fingers , because you want to work yourself into a coaching gig someday or , uh you know , an off the ice or an off the field gig . Yeah , that's , that's like the dream sports career .

Right , you go play sports for 15 years , then you become a coach or an owner or whatever . I said welding's the same . Get out there , make your money but work yourself towards a supervisor job or an inspector job or an owner job yeah , yeah , totally , totally , absolutely .

I mean , first of all , I would say almost anyone growing up in low-income housing is thinking you know how the hell do I get out of here and how do I make sure this doesn't happen for me and my family , right ? so um , you know , once I went into that environment where I was working seven days a week , 12 hour days . I was making great money .

I had no idea what to do with it . So I asked some of the other guys and I was like , what should I be doing ? And you know you get that advice from certain guys , at least back then , when cannabis was starting to be legal oh , buy this weed stock . And , you know , buy this Air Canada stock and all this sort of stuff .

And I was like , well , ok , I'll try that out . And you know it proved to be a bit interesting . But growing up around Vancouver , I was like you know what , if I just put my money in real estate , I'm sure it's going to go up in value .

So around the age of 20 , I just started purchasing rental property and , you know , funnily enough I had my mom who was willing to help me . She had been a property manager for about 20 years and , you know , being like a true welder , being stubborn and not wanting any sort of advice or help .

I was like no , I got it sorted , I'm all good , I can take care of myself . And the first tenant happened to be an occasional crackhead who somehow forgot to pay rent on time and I ended up losing about 12 , I don't know if it was 12 or 15 grand in about three months .

I loved what I was doing , it was a great field to be in , and so I just took random courses and , you know , took them through a local college , eventually transitioned over to McGill . If you were to ask me the name of what courses I took , I couldn't even tell you . It's been a little while now .

But yeah , at that point in time it really helped me a lot , seeking that financial literacy , with getting a better understanding of what I could do with my money the rental game is a tricky game .

What kind of education did you have to get and what abilities were you able to do while you're out in the field offering what you call products ?

you know , getting cheaper insurance , whatever it was , and I'd recommend it to them , but they I couldn't ensure that that actually took place , right , that's what I found was that ? okay , I'll recommend this to you , to you . But hey , it's not happening , for whatever reason . So I needed to actually be able to help them make sure it happened .

So I asked him . I said what licenses do I need ? And he said you actually need two licenses . You need a one's called the CISC . The Canadian Investment Funds course teaches you all about investments in Canada , allows you to sell mutual funds if you ever chose to or manage your own .

The other one is an llqp life license qualification program that allows you to sell insurance-based products . Both courses honestly take around like 50 hours to complete .

It's not a ton of time , which is surprising , but those are the two licenses that I got and from there I was able to help people , you know , with a lot of their financial problems now , did you find that that market is saturated ?

What I would say is like the big insurance companies Ponzi scheme where they bring in someone young , give them a little bit of training , give them a little bit of licensing , but really what they want is all that young person's contacts . They just want to be able to grab everybody out of your contact list and then they don't care about you no more .

And I've had lots of friends over the years fall for that and be like , oh , I'm an insurance guy now or I'm selling stocks now , and it's like are you really , or are you just working for a company that's flipping you a little bit of coin so you can give up your contact list ? You know , how did you compete with that ?

It's so for myself with my childhood best friend , like I was just fortunate , like I said , he happened to be someone who's making half a million dollars a year profit , right , so obviously he's able to give me a more solid blueprint in terms of you know how you go out and find clients and things like that . But definitely that was one of my concerns , right .

So I started actually on a part time basis in finance and , you know , once I was able to match or get close to the income I was making as an inspector , that I was able to make this transition over to full-time in finance .

There is a lot of that going on where those insurance companies will go ahead and try to , you know , get all those contacts from you . I mean , if you look at recruiter positions for those , those insurance companies , they pay , you know , around 200 grand a year right so obviously they're doing what they can to um you know no other

So to be able to give back to people that were in a position that I was in is really emotionally rewarding , honestly .

It's like what's wrong with the school system ? It's like , okay , well , first of all check yourself . The school's never taught that . That's not . That's not something that ever existed . The difference is that a hundred years ago , 20 years ago , there was a lot more disposable income at every level for most of society .

So you would learn your financial literacy from your parents . So I always say like rich kids know how to save right , Because rich kids are taught to save from when they're little . Like rich kids grow up with a bank account .

Rich kids grow up with their parents telling them about you know , we're going to save up money and we're going to go to Disneyland this summer . Or we're going to save up money and mom got a brand new car , but poor kids , we didn't get any of that . There was no saving . There's no discussions about banks . There's no discussions about banks .

There's no talks about RRSPs . In our houses , you know , it's always like oh the price of milk and oh the price of bread and oh the price of gas , Right , Like , yeah , it's a constant struggle . So for people to talk about financial literacy not happening at home it's because the homes don't have the finances to do it . Yeah , it really .

And I like I mean , and there are free courses offered across canada for financial literacy . Many universities and colleges offer them . Um , and I I've taken them . I ended up going back to school for some finance stuff myself because , after tanking a couple businesses , I realized I don't know how to run a business .

Maybe I should go to school and the things I learned were invaluable and , like you said , I think everyone should learn these things .

But if you're not someone who you know has full trust in what your advisor is doing , then having a better understanding of what they're actually doing with your finances is is going to be , you know , so rewarding and it's going to really help you emotionally . I think there's there's a lot of people that lose sleep over over their finances , realistically Right .

Well , let's take a break now for our advertisers and sponsors and the people that pay our bills , and then when we get back , we'll kind of start from where you are now in this new part of your life and I got some questions about the previous part of your life too but we'll be right back on the CWB Association podcast with Connor McWilliams here , and don't

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Conditions do apply , and we are back here on the cwb association podcast . My name is max seron and I'm here with connor mcwilliams coming to us from vancouver about . We're talking about his career . He started as a auto body technician , then welder , then inspector , now finance guru you know , and , uh , that that's quite the the turn .

We've cracked jokes but in all reality , um , finance is something that people in the trades often get stung by . You know , it's the joke . It was the joke . Out like I'm in the out in the west we have such a bust and boom economy that , uh , everyone's always like , oh yeah , look at my brand new truck . And then three weeks later , oh , no truck .

And then a year later look at my new truck and then six weeks later , no truck . You know , it's like , uh , the auctions are always busy out here , but that is something that I think we need to really really learn , right . So let's talk about you . You know you you start getting into financing finances and did you want to connect the two ?

Did you want to connect the trades to your financial goals ? Did you see the people in the trades trades persons , trades companies as a potential source of clients ?

So , uh , I started helping just family and friends realistically , and that was when I was , you know , becoming a welding inspector . A welding inspector at that point , and I just loved the emotional impact that it had on the people around me , right ?

Because there's so many times where I help people and I just thought , man , if my parents just knew about even half the stuff that I know today as a child , I probably would not have to have had to deal with , you know , certain situations that I had to deal with growing up .

So from there it just it made a significant impact on myself in terms of helping my community . To be totally honest with you myself , like my best friend , he recommended how to build my business . He recommended helping small business owners . So that's actually what I went for was helping small business owners .

Now , what I thought about to myself was I'm helping all these people who are most of the time doing , you know , anywhere from 48 million a year of revenue , but it's not as emotionally rewarding , realistically . So that's actually what led me to start wanting to educate a lot of welders .

Right Was , hey , I was in that situation where I had no idea what to do with my money and when I was at these shops , I , you know , I I had the hr guy sit down and he'd say do you want to do medium or high risk ? And I'd say I don't even know what I'm , what I'm talking about , right ?

so yeah um , that's what kind of led me down that route , and I was like you know what ? There's so many welders that could benefit from expanding their own level of knowledge when it comes to finances , and it would make such a big impact because , honestly speaking , a lot of the guys in the trades are making good money .

There's no reason why they can't retire early .

It's just that they're not shown how to do so right and , like you said , unless you're coming from a rich family , which , truth be told , most welders , at least the ones that I met , weren't right uh , you're just not gonna get that sort of dialogue that you would get you know , growing up with those types of parents .

So we went from , like you know , a very different part of the city to a very nice part of the city , yeah and uh .

And I , when you know , I started a new school over the summer and I was in this , you know , brand new school with really good computers and a really nice library and digital clocks , and it was like not at all where I , where I had come from as a kid and everyone around me was already talking about like I got 500 in my savings account , or grandma gave

me 100 for christmas , and it was a whole different world where it seemed like everyone had exposable income , expendable income , even as children , you know , even as children .

You know , I'm cleaning the whole house and mowing the lawn for a buck so that I can go buy a slurpee on friday , you know , and , and you know little jimmy at the school , you know his , his parents are lawyers and he's got a hundred dollar crisp , crisp , hundred dollar bill at that circle k and I'm just like what is happening in this world .

But that kind of was good for me because it taught me that you know there's a lot , I don't know there's a lot about this money . And it put a fire in me , young , that I want to not have to worry about these things anymore . I don't want to ever have to worry about , you know , the price of milk .

You know , screw it , I'm just gonna , I , I just want to . If I want milk , I'm buying milk . I don't care if it's two bucks or six bucks , I'm getting the milk , which

you know . Years later I asked a mentor of mine um , how do you know when you're happy , like financially , because it's a never-ending game , it's the rat race right , like you can run forever .

When you don't care about the gas price of gas or the price of groceries , when you just go to the gas station and you don't pick one because it's a cent cheaper and you don't pick a grocery store because they got a sale . You go to that one because it's got the best meat and you go to that one because it's got the nicest car wash .

And I was like , hmm , that's a really interesting way . But what he was trying to say is that it's about your personal choice . What are the personal things in your life that you consider necessary ? And if you have them you're good . If you're not , then you're not right , totally , totally , absolutely .

So , um , as as far as that goes , you know , with with that question , um , I've , I've had many points in my life where you know I , like I said , grew up no one , no money . Um , had months where you know , making , as you can imagine , like a pretty substantial amount of money . You know what someone might make in a year , just in a month .

But what I found was that once you reach the point , at least in my experience , of making around $10,000 a month , you can most likely cover your expenses , cover the expenses of your family , not really worry too much about , like you said , getting gas or you know where you're going for food or things like that , but anything past that , what I've found is that

your lifestyle doesn't really change all that much . It's , you know , it's just a nicer restaurant , it's just nicer clothes , it's a nicer house you live in , it's a nicer car . So , you know , once I was able to attain that $10,000 a month mark after tax , that is , I was , you know , pretty happy with the way things were going and yeah .

But you know , then again , financial independence , or you know your financial goals is different to everyone . But I think in today's day and age , with you know how everything's going . I mean , in a recent survey they did 86% of Canadians say inflation is the biggest issue in Canada right now .

Right , 46% say they're doing worse than what they anticipated doing this year . I mean gas prices up 5.6% last year , right . Food prices 22.5% last four years . Right , it's becoming crazy to be able to afford things . Most people's pay is not matching inflation , honestly yeah , yeah , right .

And then somewhere along the line that got dropped and it was like why would we stop keeping up with inflation ? That doesn't even make sense .

You know , for example , a pension plan , which is what most people pay into , what most people rely on . I don't know if they know this or not , but the amount that you're paying into it has actually increased , right , it's gone up . It used to be 4.95% of your paycheck annually and it had been that way for about 30 years .

In 2018 , it started increasing year over year . It's now 5.95% and it's crazy to expect that to cover , you know , the expenses for Canadians who are retired are retired , because , as far as that goes , what's the most amount of money you can earn from that ? about 1280 a month max yeah , right , it's it's .

It's sad , and I really wish that there's a lot more education around the topic , but I mean , hey , that's uh why I'm here and that's that's what I'm trying to do both my parents are retired .

He put all his money into RSPs in the 80s and 90s because every person in Canada was told to put all their money into RSPs for like 30 years , and then 2008 happened , happened , then 2016 happened , then 2019 happened and and everyone's rsps were worth nothing yeah so I remember him telling me after he retired he's like don't believe anyone .

Like he's like I would have been better off putting this money in a sock drawer . Like , really like , if I would have put the same amount of money into my , into a bag , it would have been better off . And I was like , oh , I hate hearing that , that you know .

He was provided a permanent insurance product at a young age , around 22 years old , and you know , he canceled it after a couple of years and he told me I lost all this money . With this insurance product you'll never get insurance , you're going to lose money .

And now that I'm in the industry , I said Well , dad , the reason why you lost money was because you pulled out . You have this charge . That's there the first 10 years . You know , if you'd kept contributing , here's how much money you would have now . And that's what that looked like . He said well , no one told me this when I canceled , you know .

So it's kind of one of those things where I just wish that more people were being educated on this sort of stuff . And you know , to go back to your point of RSPs , so many people think that RSPs because the name literally says registered retirement savings plan that that's what you use for retirement . For any person that thinks logically , that makes sense .

But it actually negatively impacts the amount of money that you receive from OAS and GIS when it comes time to retire , because they base the amount that they're willing to pay you in benefits on how much taxable income you receive .

So if you're getting benefits from RSPs or pensions , then it's actually going to hinder the amount of money the government's willing to give you in retirement , whereas someone had gone with something like a TFSA , for example .

You could be making tons of money for a TFSA on a monthly basis and it would have no impact on those benefits the government are willing to pay and as welders , most people are making a great income and it sucks to see that happen because those people have paid those taxes for things like oas and gis I mean welders mostly realistically built the country .

You know almost everything nowadays home , whatever it is , had an involvement of a welder and uh , it's sad that those same people are then not taken care of right , yeah yeah , like I mean , I I went into property too , like everyone always said , you know , like at the end of the day , nothing is more valuable than

land .

I have a financial guy here in regina . He deals with my stuff and he but every year we do our review and he's always like you know what's your goal , what's the , what's the per month you want to get when you retire ? And I'm like zero , I just want to have no debt . I'll take care of the rest myself .

You know like I'll put away what I need to put away and I'll have my things in order , what I need . But all I want on the day I retire is a lump sum for me to put bows on the things that I have going on and that's it . I'll never see you again . Have a nice life .

She had a car crash and wasn't working for five years , so she got five years of salary all at once . It was like a 250 000 settlement and for people that don't have financial literacy , that's a very large .

I mean even people that do , that's a large amount of money Very dangerous yeah , and we went and talked to the bank and I won't say which bank , but we qualified for private banking , which is , you know , if you have a certain amount of assets that you hold , you qualify for private level banking , which is where they can provide you .

You know , ETFs , individual stocks , all different investment products that are doing usually a lot better than what you receive at a branch level , but the products that she was put in were bringing about like one and a half percent per year .

Right , there's so many Canadians nowadays I mean 40% . In a recent survey they did from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada , about 40% of Canadians are worried about their debt . Right , which is a huge percentage of the population genuinely .

And then you're gonna start getting those letters and I remember being in my early 20s and I would just literally get credit cards in the mail with 10 , 15 000 limits ready to go and that's extremely tempting you know , like you go to canadian tire , oh , all of a sudden I have a canadian tire credit card and then I got a west jet credit card .

And then I got a WestJet credit card and then I got a Costco credit card . And then I was like OK , like relax . I remember being in my mid 20s , coming up on 30 , and I had a stack of credit cards and I didn't apply for a single one . You know what I mean . Like they would just show up in the mail and that's really dangerous for a young person .

That's , you know , new to making money . And especially like you're gonna have a family , you're gonna buy a house , and then you're gonna have a stack of credit cards on your back .

, but when it comes to finances , like if you're in debt , you go to jail , that's it right . So , not a lot of people in debt over there , right ? I personally believe that you know Canadians well . North America as a whole is really taught to buy . It's a consumer-based society .

I mean for myself , with my Airbnb business , it's based in the USs , so I get paid in us dollars and you know , whenever I'm , I'm looking at things here and I I have my you know earnings for my canadian business , I go , well , what the heck ? I can't really afford much in terms of you know , usd , right , it's . It's crazy .

You go to anywhere well , not anywhere , but most places in the us , like , for example , dallas , where I have some airbnbs and the things that we purchase restaurants , whatever gas it's it's around the same price . It's just that now it's in us dollars . I'm like what the heck's going on ?

And housing , yeah , you can still find some , some nuggets in the US that are neat , but it's been pretty picked over at this point and , um , I mean , I I have I'm starting to invest back home in South America because it's like finding the next next markets , right like it's like where , where , where can I go to to look for I guess those ?

I don't know what I'm like . No , I don't want to say backdoor deals like the . You want to get a one-up , you want to find the next great thing before somebody else finds it right .

I , um , I wish that the government would have a larger role in making it easier for people in terms of looking at , you know , the state of the Canadian economy and I think a lot of people , you know , with raising taxes , like they did with capital gains they just rose it up , you know , to 66 percent or 66.67 .

Whereas before it was 50 percent is they expect to take all this money from people who are wealthy when , realistically , they're just moving it to other countries ? And I think it's it's pretty sad to see , honestly , right ? So , um , it's .

Cause as rich as welders are , the companies we work for are way richer right . And none of them live in Canada . Even if it's a Canadian company , they're filtering all their money to Phoenix or the Bahamas or somewhere else . So when I see those tax gains , those tax increases , I do get the other side of it being like look rich guy , I'm not .

I can't trust you to put that money back into your own economy . So I'm going to have to take it , because otherwise you're just spending it somewhere else . Now if all rich Canadians would just spend their money in Canada , invest in Canadian business , invest in Canadian housing , man , it would be so much better . But I don't know . We're free market capitalism .

We can't tell people where to spend their money .

I think that , uh , you know , as , as far as that goes , it's , it's very crazy , and and I think it boils down to , at least from the people that I know , like the clients I have who are doing very well financially , is a lot of them just don't feel right with what's happening with their tax dollars .

You know , for example , for every dollar you spend in taxes , 20 cents of it is going , uh , towards interest . Just on debt for a government , right , it's , uh , yeah , it's , it's , and I think we have the lowest debt ratio out of the g8 .

38 trillion dollars , whatever it is to who to who like to ? to ? To mars ? Do we owe it to the sun ? Like , how do you owe that to yourself ? If anything you owe it to the people , give it back to them . You know what I mean ?

Like I don't understand how we built debt against ourselves as a country , like I guess it's probably a more theoretical question , but I just find it so funny was like , oh , like , uh , like I'm from south america , so like argentina is just going through a terrible political revolt right now and their inflation rate was at 187% this last year and people in Canada

are freaking out over 6% and we're all losing our hair going gray over 6% . Meanwhile the US is sitting at 7% , argentina is at 187% and even Canada in the 80s was at 20% . So statistically we're in the glory years , but realistically we don't feel like it . You know what I mean like what's ? What's the disconnect between all these different systems ?

You know a lot of lobbying and things like that , but I think you know the really boil it down . It just comes down to getting educated when it comes to your finances . You know what are you doing with your paycheck . You know it starts early , starts early . Put away 10 , 15 percent of your paycheck .

Start learning that when you're young , get that financial discipline , that when you are a rig welder you're not buying all those lifted trucks and ski sleds and stuff like that , right .

What is it that's on your , on your end list ?

It is operating in the US and I just plan to expand in the US through that business , using things like debt and all those sorts of tools to help myself out in that regard . But I really love the campaign that I'm currently doing to help myself out in that regard , but I really love the campaign that I'm currently doing to help welders .

That's what I do with a lot of my spare time . At this point in time , the Airbnb stuff is mostly passive maybe three or four hours a month at work , something like that but it's very passive . So , rather than just sitting at home and dwindling with my thumbs and just looking at walls and whatever being bored .

I would rather , you know , do something where it feels like I'm helping out . So it would be great to be able to do the same thing in the US and , you know , kind of tackle that route . But as far as my goal , my mission I mean my mission right now is to educate people at no cost , and I would love to just see that expand in terms of a number .

I don't really have a number in mind that I would like to help . I just , I just want to see everyone get help . I don't know if you've seen those max , but they did studies about , uh , you know , if you want to become a doctor , what your financial outlook looks like versus going to trades , and I'll tell you what .

Like , if people do it right , the trades is 110% the way to go .

So I don't think it's as great as these people assume it is being a business owner . In that regard , right , there's so many headaches that come alongside it . Even you know , when you do become a doctor I mean , most doctors are making around a quarter million a year , but they get to graduate with half a million dollars of debt right , it's not or more .

. So from your point of view , I guess like there's a couple of things Number one . How do people find you Like ? I guess like there's a couple things number one . How do people find you like , how do people reach out to you if they're listening to the podcast ? They're young or old , well , there doesn't matter .

You're somewhere in the trades journey and you'd like some financial literacy , some education . You know how do they find it ? How do they reach out to you ?

They can reach out to me through LinkedIn my name is Connor McWilliams . They can shoot me to me through linkedin my name is connor mcwilliams . They can shoot me a phone call uh , you know , my phone number is 778-887-1455 . Or give me an email uh , you know , connor c-o-n-n-o-r mcwill , m-c-w-i-l-h .

Emailcom , and I'd be more than happy to help them out cool , cool .

He's in finance , he's done well in real estate and you know , we're thinking of kind of getting together and , just like you said , you know , maybe going to all these shops and sharing the mission , because I think what happens is a lot as well .

There's is , uh well , there's definitely a different way of talking when you're a welder versus when you're talking to your uh , you know , banker .

So yeah , absolutely I think being able to talk to those people is is , uh , a blessing in disguise and really , coming from that background , I understand how tough it is , where you know one day you're told , hey , there's going to be , you know , five months of steady work , we're all good to go .

And the next week you're told , hey , there's going to be , you know , five months of steady work , we're all good to go . And the next week you're getting laid off and you're like what the going on Right ?

We have commercials on TV being like if you're in agriculture , come to this bank , because we speak agriculture , you know , shop at these stores because we support agriculture , we support the farmers right , which is a very smart way to do it , because farmers have a certain way of talking and being and they want to be comfortable when they go to the bank .

You know they want to be comfortable going to the grocery store . These are their people . They can be themselves . They don't have to pretend to put on a suit and be weird or whatever . They can just be farmers . Absolutely , people don't talk about that , about the trades . You know like what bank trades people .

You know you got a guy who works or a girl that works 12 hours a day , seven or seven days a week for months on end . They get maybe a couple days off every few months to go hang out with their family and their kids and they got to take a one hour trip out of that short time off to go to the bank and talk finances . And you know what .

It's not comfortable . You don't feel good about it . You don't feel like you don't what you're talking about . You don't feel like you're even welcome there because everyone around you is all clean , cut and squeaky clean and all businessy .

And you're in your , you know you're in your burnt up hoodie , with your , with your work boots on and your ripped jeans and they look at you like you're kind of like , oh , what are you doing here ? Meanwhile , you probably make more money than every person in that bank . You know .

I remember feeling frustrated about that all the time People look down on me oh , he's tattoos , he's got piercings , got long hair . Look at this grubby guy . It's like yo . I make more money than literally everyone in this building . Right so so you know that language is a barrier .

Right , it's a barrier because trades people sometimes don't feel welcome in these establishments of finance totally , totally , absolutely .

Uh , and a lot of that comes from , you know , being made to feel , like you just said , like you're almost an alien walking to a place where you're not welcome , right ? So , creating that environment , well , where , hey man , you know , I came from the same background . I totally understand how it is in the trades , right ?

Um , it just makes people a lot more comfortable and , you know , as far as getting access , I do everything through zoom , right , I mean , I do have an office in vancouver , but I like to go there once a week . Try not to drive in downtown , you know all those one ways and traffic and all that .

Oh , I know , I know yeah , so I'll run meetings through zoom and you know it's , it's . Uh , I don't have any sort of set schedule . Like I said at the start , I just uh work those blue collar hours in a white collar job . So you know , usually doing 7 12s . But I mean doesn too tough .

I mean the toughest part of my day is adjusting the air conditioning right . So that's about it .

But for you , was it a hard transition going from a blue collar lifestyle to a white collar lifestyle , because I have my views on that too , you know . So like I'd like to hear yours holy .

how I could do this . And I would say the best way to make that shift is reach out to people who are leading lives that you would want to replicate , right With myself . That's exactly what I did . I asked someone who was living a life where there were certain areas where I wanted to duplicate , right . I said , hey , man , how do I do all this ?

How do I get involved ? This I don't think it matters at all what you go into . You could be freaking selling pickles and you know , as long as you found a , a mentor that did well selling pickles , you could probably duplicate the same results , right , right . So I would say , reach out to those people .

A lot of them are a lot more willing to actually communicate with you than you think , even like with my Airbnb stuff , man , to be totally honest , I had no idea how to get into the US for Airbnbs or any of this stuff , and there's this guy on Instagram and I just shot him a message and he makes you know like two million dollars a month .

I was like hey man , how do I do this ? I'd like to do it . That was it right now . He helps me and all that stuff . So I think that helps a ton and you know that's why people get business coaches . But yeah , you know , go into that , make that shift part-time .

You get to control when you're working and you're able to match your income on a part-time basis you're making full-time welding then you know you can make that transition right . That's a good time to give it a shot , obviously if you have savings right .

If you're a young entrepreneur in Canada looking to switch careers or start up a business , there's a government grant and part of the grant comes with a mentorship matching where you get to actually , if you don't have one , they'll find one for you .

I'm registered in there , so I have been matched with young welders looking to go into entrepreneurship because you know I've started companies , I've been a part of lots of startups and you know now , now I'm a you know sort of pretty good where I am , I guess .

And um so I I do like to mentor and , like you said , mentoring , mentorship is huge in in in community , whether it's blue collar or white collar , and um , and then the other piece I would say to people that are in blue collar , looking to move into white collar is don't take your foot off the gas , because blue collar moves fast .

Blue collar is results orientated . Blue collar is about meeting deadlines . Blue collar is about these parts got to go out the door because people need them and that's that when you get into white collar world .

It's a lot of bs and a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and people spinning their wheels and and people having meetings for the sake of having meetings , and it's a whole lot of stuff that oh yeah you're going to be able to power through if you keep your blue collar mentality going into white collar .

You're going to work circles around people and you're going to do things faster , better and on time , because that's what blue collar is trained to do . We're trained to do that . You know at all at all like get her done , and white collar is not like that typically .

So you're gonna have a bit of a fight when you get into the white collar , because some people are not gonna like that movement . Stick to your guns , though . Keep your pedal to the metal . Keep the same attitude . Like myself , I still get up early every day . I don't have to because I have a white collar job .

I can make my own hours , but I kept my schedule . This is a schedule that made me successful before . Why would I stop ? Why ?

It's like well , because , because I got it done , like I mean that's because that's what I do , right like I mean I like to be able to work circles around people I always have , even in blue color . I liked being , you know , a good , fast , clean welder . Well , now I'm a good fast clean paper pusher pusher . It is what it is right .

And even you know , with being a welding inspector , the same thing happens , right , I don't know if you're ever in that role , but I remember being a welding inspector going from an environment where you know you swipe into a job and this electronic clock and you punch in and then you punch out the second .

You're out , right To be super time efficient and try to get the lowest amount of hours on it . And I went into welding inspecting and I'd be doing , you know , inspections and half the time it takes normally , and they'd be like what are you doing ?

And I'm there , you know hustling busting my like hopping under this crane or whatever , and they're like just just slow down right , just like no . I was like well , how do I ? do that like that's the deal right .

So , yeah , it's , it's definitely an interesting change , but I I think you know , oddly enough with being an advisor it's funny that I would say this but I don't think life is all about money . I think it's about becoming the best version of yourself and I think if you're someone that wants to explore that side of yourself , you know , go and try it out .

Get yourself someone like yourself who helps other people who are welders . Go into those roles where you know they can be self-employed or or or at least try it out .

Just show them the path and and uh , you know , reach out and ask for help and through that you'll just find a new you know self-identity realistically , and I think that will stay with you longer than any . You know , financial freedom would really have a have an impact at least on your life .

What would be the first step someone should do just to start getting their head wrapped around this .

Where can I find that source of income ? Ok , so I can find that source of income through all these different routes . Who do I know in that field that's doing well ? Okay , how can I connect with that person , whether it's , you know , instagram , linkedin , whatever it is ?

There's so many different ways to connect with people nowadays and , uh , I I think that's really the greatest place to start is figuring out you know what sort of lifestyle you , what sort of person you want to become and what actual opportunity provides you . The easiest route to go and achieve that .

You're on live air so no one can see . I didn't warn you , um , but you know that is part of what the association investment is . We invest millions of dollars across canada into just letting people connect this podcast .

This is an investment that we make in getting people like your story out there and we have chapters in every province across canada where we have like-minded individuals that support each other . That's all . It is volunteers supporting each other , and they're funded by us here at headquarters .

So you know , that's the type of people we want to get together and I'm pulling you into the network buddy that you may . You may want to or not , but you're going to meet a lot of welders .

He's a genius in my personal opinion . The guy he busts his a** as a shop owner . He's a great guy . And another guy who managed the welding inspecting company . I was part of his name , Steven . It's called Matek , their little company , but I always used to joke with him .

I said , steven , you should be curing cancer , not figuring out if there's cracks in cranes , because he's just the smartest guy I've ever come across , right . But yeah , it's a great network to be in and I'm definitely looking forward to hopefully helping more people .

. Become a member of the association so you can get in contact with these type of people through our network and , as always , keep commenting , downloading and and letting us know what you'd like to see on the podcast . We're always looking for great stories , so you know it's the people and it's the community that make the podcast as successful as it is .

And , just like Connor , we're moving into the US soon here too , so we're expanding and we can't wait to bring in all of America together into this network . So stay tuned for the next episode . We hope you enjoy the show .

Produced by the CWB Group and presented by Max Ceron , this podcast serves to educate and connect the welding community . Please subscribe and thank you for listening .